As the most popular video sharing and viewing platform, YouTube is also a dynamic search engine. In 2015, YouTube was ranked as the 2nd largest search tool with more than 300 hours of video content being uploaded every minute.

Since the onset of livestreaming or social video, YouTube has maintained its status as a player by adding features to the platform: 360 video, live broadcasts, and soon livestreaming video from the mobile app.

With these new developments in mind, now is the ideal time to start using these three ways to make your YouTube channel all that it can be.

Add Your Brand to Videos.

YouTube includes a feature to automatically add your branded watermark to each video you upload to the channel.

Create a transparent PNG file of your logo, preferably one that fits into a square shape.

Go to your YouTube channel dashboard and click on the Channel pulldown menu.

Select the Branding option and click on the Add a Watermark button.

Select the transparent PNG file of your logo, then click Save.

Adjust your settings to display your watermark at the end of videos, throughout entire videos, or to appear at a certain time in each video.

Add Other Links to Your Channel.

Your YouTube channel will overlay up to five additional links along the bottom right of your YouTube cover photo. Your channel visitors can find you on other social platforms or your website.

Go to your YouTube channel (make sure you are logged into your browser using the Google account with administration access for your channel).

Hover your mouse along the top right to click on the edit icon.

Select Edit LInks.

In the Custom Links area, enter the Link Title and URL for alternate profiles you have online. You can enter as many links as you wish, but YouTube will only overlay up to five links on your channel’s cover photo. Types of links you can enter are:

Social media links;

Your website;

Your blog;

Click Done to preview how your links will look. YouTube will use the URLs you provided for each link to generate an icon for that type of link (e.g. a Facebook icon for your Facebook link, your website’s favicon for your website link, etc.).

YouTube will put the links in the order you entered them in the link fields. If you don’t like the order, go back into Edit Links to shift around the titles and their corresponding URLs.

Add Call-to-Action Cards to Your Videos.

As engaging as your videos may be, you can increase the interactivity factor by adding Cards to YouTube videos.

A Card in your YouTube video will appear at a set point in the video (which you select) as a brief label your user can click to view and follow.